Heartstealer: The Book That Will Not Die

I’m back from my jaunt south of the border. My visits with Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris never last long enough, but I always come home feeling like my head’s been screwed on straight again. Not only do I spend time with people very dear to my heart, I can pause and get my creative bearings.

Which is good. I needed a kick in the pants, because…

Heartstealer is coming out soon.

I know, I know. We had this conversation seven months ago. The novel was all proofed, it had an ISBN assigned, I had a beautiful cover by Starla Hutchton, interviews and guest posts were ready to drop. Literally, I just had to push the Big Red Button to make it a real, self-published book.

Remember this? It was beautiful!

And then things happened. And then things didn’t happen. And then I felt bad about myself. And then I didn’t have time. And then I wondered if I should even release it at all.

Fortunately, I also saw Abigail Hilton and Lauren Harris relatively recently (July is recent, right?). They told me that if only button-pushing remained…then I should just push the damn button already.

Do eeeet…

And here’s the thing: I still love this story. I still love the characters, I love the world, and I love the themes. A few weeks back, someone came into the brewery with a heavy Irish accent and my heart just melted. Heartstealer still feels like home to me. Yes, there’s at least five other novels in the pipeline (four I’ll be talking about later this month, one’s still rattling around the old noggin), but I’m not quite done with my girls yet. Mairi and Sara have a story. It’s got ghosts and gods and long-leggedy beasties. It’s a story about love, and grief, and tangled histories.

I want to tell it.

Just a sleepy country village, right? Welcome to Grey Run.

So here’s the deal: it’ll be out on Amazon—print and e-copies—by October 7th. Sometime in the eventual future, we’ll get the Audible version as well, thanks to my supremely skilled Voice Talent of Awesome (as Tee Morris has dubbed her).

And then, we shall see. I hope people enjoy reading Heartstealer, because I had a hell of a good time writing it.

-KT

What I’m Listening to This Week

Oh, I’ve been listening to the most wonderful piece! “Dark Night of the Soul,” by Ola Gjeilo. We start with a bang—that thrilling, driving rhythm in the instrumentals; the long, drawn-out chords in the choir. It’s the kind of piece that grabs you and doesn’t let go.

It’s also twelve mintues long, which means there’s several changes in mood and pace. I love the lilting lines in the lower parts around 3:53, and the dreamy middle section (all those tinkling piano runs!), but my absolute favourite comes around the 9:00 mark, when delicate strings explode into our initial driving rhythm. Only to the nth degree.

I get lost in pieces like this, where so much is happening at once. There’s no feeling like it.